“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

Finally, global sea ice area is close to 1 million sq km above the 1979-2008 mean. It is indeed remarkable just how “normal” global sea ice has been throughout this year, bobbing up and down around the mean.